I got stopped in a STL suburb close to Ferguson last summer for a minor traffic violation. It was late, dark and rainy, and Id just driven 14 hours from Erie PA on my way to CA for a music festival. 60 year old white male driving a white Chevrolet van with PA plates, making a left turn after the arrow turned red into a parking lot. I was tired and hungry, looking for a place to eat and spend the night. As the cop led me back to his patrol car, two other local cop cars sped onto the scene for back-up. For the next 30 minutes the cop who pulled me over interrogated me about where I was from, where I was going, my line of work, what I was carrying in the van, etc. Questions that had nothing to do with the violation. At one point when I said I was going to visit a friend in Denver, he asked me if I was a marijuana user and if I was going to CO to buy pot. My point is there were several times during this stop, when I started losing my cool and wanted to tell the cop to shove it and just write the d^@n ticket. But I didnt. I answered his questions respectfully and acted submissively. I had to take control of the situation by keeping my cool while the cop acted like a wild west cowboy. When it was over, I wondered, if I were 18 years old in that same situation would I have ended up under arrest that night? or worse yet shot by a policeman who didnt like my looks, or that I was from out of state, or that I was driving to a pot state. Now factor in race and an 18 year black kid out with his friends getting high, robbing a pack of cigars from a convenience store, and a Missouri cop not trained in non-violent deescalation of tense situations. . A black kid on the streets can have an attitude but so can a cop in a patrol car. We pay the cop in patrol car to keep the peace not carry around an attitude, like the MO cop had with me, a 60 yr old white male. The black kid, we hope, lives long enough to turn his life around and make something of himself. If his life has value.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 22:29:27 +0000
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